CNN poll: Budget deal supported by 20-point margin

posted at 10:12 am on April 12, 2011 by Ed Morrissey

CNN has the first major media poll on the reaction of the general public to the budget deal announced late Friday night, and it looks popular indeed. In a poll taken on Saturday and Sunday, the compromise gets approval from 58% of adults, with only 38% disapproving. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to have helped Barack Obama at all:

Who won last week’s showdown over the federal budget and the government shutdown-that-wasn’t?

It looks like the public gives the Democrats more credit for the deal than the Republicans, but it’s nothing like the slam-dunk that Bill Clinton scored during the 1995 government shutdown, and it certainly has not been reflected in President Barack Obama’s overall approval rating, according to a new national poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday indicates that the budget agreement that prevented a government shutdown is popular, with Americans supporting it by a 58 to 38 percent margin. But there’s a partisan divide, with two-thirds of Democrats and a majority of independent voters backing the deal, and Republicans divided.

The poll was conducted among general-population adults rather than registered voters and with a slightly smaller sample than in other polls. CNN doesn’t include party affiliation distribution in its results, which is a little suspicious; they report results in crosstabs for “Tea Party supporters” but never indicate their relative position within the sample, either. It seems that the focus on skewed polls has made media surveys less transparent rather than pressing the media to improve their sampling techniques.

Interestingly, although respondents gave Democrats more credit for the agreement than Republicans (48/35) and strongly approve of the deal, that didn’t equate to a boost in Obama’s standing. His overall approval rating fell to 48/50 from 51/47 three weeks ago, the first time Obama has sunk below 50% in the CNN poll since mid-December and the first time he’s been underwater since the midterm election. Despite getting a 54/45 on handling the budget talks, Obama is still sinking even in the most sympathetic sampling possible.

It’s not the only odd combination of results in the poll, either. Almost two thirds of respondents wanted Planned Parenthood funding to continue (65/34), but 61% want a bar on federal funding for abortions. Despite national polls showing continuing opposition to ObamaCare, 58% of respondents in this poll want funding for it to continue, and 71% wanted funding to continue for the EPA’s climate-change regulation as well. If Obama can’t get above 48% in this sample, then he’s got a serious problem.

Almost two thirds of respondents wanted Planned Parenthood funding to continue (65/34), but 61% want a bar on federal funding for abortions

The left has succeeded in convincing the public that no government money goes to abortions at Planned Parenthood. They really believe a firewall is there to stop Government funded abortions. To win this argument we must prove there is no real firewall. Until we do, this perception will stay the same.

Bill O’Reilly was throwing this poll around last night. He acted like he took it seriously. But, several of his guests (Brit Hume and Karl Rove) suggested he wait for other polls. They apparently know what we know about polls from leftist organizations such as CNN. They also commented that the poll only included adults as opposed to likely voters.

Coincidentally, these figures exactly mirror those who think money grows on trees and groceries are delivered to the market by food pixies.

Bishop on April 12, 2011 at 10:23 AM

naw, their polling sample consisted only of people like that chick who was swooning over Obama back in 2008 when she thought he was going to pay for her house, her car, her gas, and her groceries. Remember her? They found 500 more like her and considered it a statistical sample of all America! LOL

naw, their polling sample consisted only of people like that chick who was swooning over Obama back in 2008 when she thought he was going to pay for her house, her car, her gas, and her groceries. Remember her? They found 500 more like her and considered it a statistical sample of all America! LOL

karenhasfreedom on April 12, 2011 at 10:59 AM

Peggy the Moocher.
I wonder how she feels about gas prices now. I’d bet her support for Obama hasn’t wavered one bit.

The left has succeeded in convincing the public that no government money goes to abortions at Planned Parenthood. They really believe a firewall is there to stop Government funded abortions. To win this argument we must prove there is no real firewall. Until we do, this perception will stay the same.
IowaWoman on April 12, 2011 at 10:25 AM

This is why I have little sympathy for teachers. As a whole, they’re doing a lousy job. They’re primary responsibilty is teaching children to think–not grow up to recite liberal talking points.

Conservatives need to leave this issue alone until they spend more time explaining the issue.

Here’s my suggestion. Johnny and his parents have a deal under which Johnny pays for half of his college expenses and half social expenses, while his parents foot the rest of the college and social expenses. Grandma wants to subsidize Johnny’s college experience, but she didn’t like seeing the Playboy magazines that Johnny had in his frat house room. So she tells Johnny that she’ll send him $100 a month as long as he doesn’t use that $100 dollars for his Playboy subscription. Johnny even sets up a segregated bank account and proves to Grammy that he doesn’t use her money for anything other than school or social expenses.

Meanwhile, Johnny continues to subscribe to Playboy because money he otherwise earned himself or he received from his parents has been “freed up” to pay for the subscription.

Question for voters: is Grammy’s money helping to pay for the Playboy subscription?

The whole abortion funding result reflects the political value of lying in the media. How many Dems chanted the mantra last week that shutting down Planned Parenthood (hello!!) would remove from millions of women their only source for cancer screenings, mammograms, and general health services? Remember “Republicans are hoping women will die”? The president of PP was even videotaped making statements that PP did mammograms and cancer screenings – which in reality THEY DO NOT DO! Let me repeat that THEY DO NOT DO!

PP pr flacks and liberals in the media quickly set out to walk back and “interpret” her comments, but they never admitted that the lies had been said and taken hold and then repeated on the floor of the Senate and in press conferences on the Hill.

Lies are better than the truth for Dems – they are just so much more malleable and repeatable since they tightly reinforce a meme’.

This poll indicates that the budget battle is a HUGE win for the conservative side. Why? Because all of the Dem caterwauling about disaster has moved few hearts and fewer heads. People are getting used to the cries of alarm from the Donkey Left. They are starting to regard it as Donkeys Braying “Wolf!” They now must fool all of the people all of the time, and it’s not working.

Too many people wouldn’t know about the 2011 budget. We can’t just ignore them – these people can vote, but what information they ever get comes from CNN and the rest.

I have them in my family, have to be very careful talking to them, since they think I’m a right-wing extremist. But if I tell them very simple things like ‘the Democrats never did a 2011 budget’ sometimes it gets their attention.

It seems that the focus on skewed polls has made media surveys less transparent rather than pressing the media to improve their sampling techniques.

It’s not the only odd combination of results in the poll, either. Almost two thirds of respondents wanted Planned Parenthood funding to continue (65/34), but 61% want a bar on federal funding for abortions.

Almost two thirds of respondents wanted Planned Parenthood funding to continue (65/34), but 61% want a bar on federal funding for abortions.
what?

ted c on April 12, 2011 at 10:14 AM

Those folks believe PP is about women health and that money is not fungible, hence they support funding ‘other’ health services but don’t want to fund abortion.

The only way to validate that would be to ask the respondents something similar to this: “while PP gets funding to provide women health services, should they also get funding to fund abortions”. That’s the real money question.

Again I remond readers here:
1. Republicans in the hourse of representatives were elected on a promise that they would cut $100 Billion from the 2011 budget.
2. Not budget was ver submitted for consideration by a houre republican meber that equaled at least $100 billion dollars. They never even tried.
3. the $38.5 billion agreement republicans made with democrats, cuts 1% off of the previous year’s spending. That means we are still spending at 99% of what we did the previous year.
4. The $100 Billion cut would have equaled about 3.2%. If they cant keep a promise to cut that much what makes you think they are going to cut that much more in 2012 or any other year?

Again I remond readers here:
1. Republicans in the hourse of representatives were elected on a promise that they would cut $100 Billion from the 2011 budget.
2. Not budget was ver submitted for consideration by a houre republican meber that equaled at least $100 billion dollars. They never even tried.
3. the $38.5 billion agreement republicans made with democrats, cuts 1% off of the previous year’s spending. That means we are still spending at 99% of what we did the previous year.
4. The $100 Billion cut would have equaled about 3.2%. If they cant keep a promise to cut that much what makes you think they are going to cut that much more in 2012 or any other year?

paulsur on April 12, 2011 at 2:12 PM

How were they supposed to cut $100 billion when only $250 billion of changeable spending remains? Maybe because they will have the full $3.8 trillion to cut from going forward? I’m surprised they got $49 billion. Anyhow, if you’re really upset about it you can go cry in your tea and dream of the 3rd, I mean tea, party revolution to come.

What cracks me up is the fact that the Republicans were running deficits during the Bush years and now they’re suddenly so worried about debt. Granted, the Republicans were running lower deficits than the Dems, but that’s no excuse to suddenly start worrying about debt – they should have been worrying about that a long time ago.

Moreover, government is an institution of theft and waste. What’s amazing to me is that people want more government, but government is the problem. As a recent college graduate who has had a whopping 3 interviews in the past year, I will not be voting for the Repubs in the next election cycle. They had their chance and they screwed it up.